A Brilliant Solution
by Aurora Musis Amica
Summary: The second Krogan Rebellion is raging through Citadel Space. In desperation, the Council forms a plan to recruit the recently discovered humans, rumoured to be a ruthless and powerful species. They send Spectre Garrus Vakarian to negotiate for their aid. However, as Garrus seeks the ship called Normandy and its commander, he realises the humans have goals of their own. (AU)
1. The Mission

It's a dark time for the galaxy as the second krogan rebellion rages throughout Citadel Space. Pushed to desperation, the Council hatches a daring plan that may just change the balance of power, forever. Having heard rumours from a remote region of the Attican Traverse of a ruthless and powerful race known as humans, they send a Spectre named Garrus Vakarian to make first contact and negotiate for their assistance against the krogan.

However, as Garrus seeks the ship called Normandy and its Commander, he comes to realise that the humans have goals of their own.

Author's note: Due to the way this fic is structured completely from Garrus' point of view, (and the fact that space combat is just so darn fun to write) it will take a bit before Shepard's appearance. I humbly ask that you still give the story a chance on its own merits.

* * *

"So you refuse?"

Garrus cocked his head, meeting Councilor Sparatus' dare with a calm look.

"I didn't say that. But I am saying, I don't think I'm the person for this mission. I'm not a diplomat. You know that."

The Council knew that very well, because they believed in using the right Spectre for the right job. Garrus' own combination of talents – a ruthless data analyst with a keen eye for detail, coupled with both ranged and close combat expertise – usually meant he was their go-to Spectre for investigations in hostile territory. It occasionally involved talking to people, but rarely convincing them of anything other than the wisdom of answering his questions.

Sparatus actually scoffed. "We know you're not a diplomat, Vakarian. That's why we're sending you this time."

On Garrus' confused look, Tevos, the asari councilor continued, "We did send a team of our best diplomats to initiate contact. They have recently returned, and informed us that future contact with the humans be best left to trained military personnel."

"In other words," Sparatus picked up, "the humans chewed them up and spit them out. Which proves that they are a perfect counter-force for the Krogan Clans, but they must also be dealt with like the krogan. Strength in combat is the only way to win their respect."

"So you want me to go into human territory and... find one to beat up?"

The salarian councilor just shook his head, perhaps not realising the joke. Sparatus at least looked like he got it, but was not amused. "Actually, we have a candidate for you, along with a nice long list of 'gifts' created by the diplomatic corps' analysts, consisting of raw resources we believe they are in need of, to present the humans in exchange for an agreement to negotiate."

"We do not need you to finalize negotiations for their assistance in the war effort," Tevos assured him. "We only need you to establish communications and get them to agree to consider our proposals."

"I see." That... actually sounded exactly as difficult, in Garrus' opinion. "Well, if you believe I am the man for the job..."

"We do. The Spectre office has complete downloads on all our available intel, as well as our best translation protocols."

"Though note," Valern chimed in, "that most of our translation protocols so far come by way of the batarians. There may be inconsistencies. Make sure your own translator is set up to gather more data, and be prepared to revise on the go."

Garrus blinked, then shared another look with Sparatus, unspoken question clear. _Are you sure this is wise?_ Not that Garrus was a paragon of wisdom to begin with. If he was, he would've stayed in C-Sec.

"We realise this mission has a lot of failure conditions," Sparatus allowed. "And I for one am not too inclined to see history repeat itself." There was a brief exchange of looks between the councilors. They'd no doubt been debating this for quite some time.

"Nor am I." Garrus assured them, his brain already working on a preliminary draft of a plan. And pointing out concerns to raise, but Sparatus beat him to it.

"Also, we recognise that additional funding may be required for this assignment. Stop by the Spectre requisitions office before you leave, they'll set you up with a special expenditures account."

Bribes, in other words. Heh, at least not from his own pockets, this time. Bribing an entire civilisation might've burned a hole.

"And we're placing the Hierarchy frigate _Unconquerable_ at your disposal for this mission. It is standing by in the docking bay, ready to leave at your earliest convenience."

They were just determined to plow right through all of his good objections.

"Thank you, Councilors. I will begin immediately."

"Excellent. This meeting is adjourned."

The lights turned off and Garrus lift his omni-tool to find out where exactly the _Unconquerable_ was docked. But movement in the corner of his eye got his attention.

"Garrus." Sparatus' voice was low. He stood alone at the podium. "The Krogan have broken through the sixth fleet's lines, we've lost control of relay 26."

Two jumps from the breach to Palaven. One jump to several of the Hierarchy's most populated colonies. Garrus nodded once. "I understand."


	2. The Complication

Garrus stood side-by-side with Captain Cassius on the bridge of the _Unconquerable_ as the ship prepared for the final relay jump into human territory. There was a small taskgroup on duty guarding the relay, consisting of a light cruiser and two frigates, none of them larger than the _Unconquerable_ herself. If the humans came through the relay with hostile intent, there was little doubt the three ships would be unable to stop them. Cynically put, their destruction would be the warning signal to the Hierarchy, and then only after they failed their routine check-in.

But all truly combat capable ships were on the Krogan front, leaving the back door open. If the lesser powers in this region understood the vast amount of space that had previously fallen under protectorate status that was now up for grabs...

Well. Human infighting was doing more to protect Citadel space than the spread thin ships of the turian fleet was. Intel was dodgy as to the humans' exact combat strength – though that, in and of itself, said something. If ships had engaged the humans and lived, there would be _more_ intel available. However, the batarians that did business with some of the human factions (nations? tribes? organisations? Garrus had probably skimmed past that detail) had noted, with some smug amusement, that the standard operating procedure for human expansion made even the hanar look efficient.

One faction would activate a relay, scout the system, then claim it in their name. Then months would pass where the other factions scouted the same system while the first faction scrambled to gather the colonial resources necessary to establish a presence. Once comfortably settled by the first faction, a second faction would move in with superior firepower and wrest control of the system from its initial settlers, keeping the infrastructure intact. The first faction would then, invariably, return with bigger guns, and quite possibly temporary allies, to continue the cycle of conquest. At which point the situation descended into the space equivalent of a free-for-all brawl as other factions smelled blood in the air, well and truly stalling further expansion, at least for the time being.

Any other time, Garrus reflected, his mission as a Spectre would have been to find a way to keep that infighting going. Souring alliances, framing other factions, playing each of them against each other, never letting one become more powerful than the other. Intel was clear: humans were not ready to unite, even against a common foe.

So naturally, that was exactly what Garrus' mission entailed.

"Three minutes to relay, sirs." The pilot, like the rest of the crew, had been unusually receptive to having a Spectre on board. Most ships hated being conscripted for Spectre-ferrying, and not without good reason. Some, like Saren, were nearly as ruthless to their allies as to their enemies. Captain Cassius however had made something of a career out of bringing Spectres where they needed to go. And usually back again.

"Any comm buoy transmissions?" Cassius asked, even though they both knew the answer.

"No sir, we'll be going in blind."

"Understood. Proceed." He raised his omni-tool and entered a command, and a moment later his voice sounded throughout the ship. "Attention crew, general quarters, general quarters. Weapons cold, we're going in friendly. Captain out."

There was no particular flurry of action at his command – most of the crew, barely larger than a skeleton crew to begin with, were already at their stations. They'd sent a message ahead informing the humans they were coming. A ship designated _Normandy_ had sent a reply that they were welcome to this system and would be met at the relay. But given the fractured nature of the human factions, it was quite possible the message had ended up in more hands than friendly ones.

Ahead, the relay loomed. It dwarfed even the largest dreadnoughts of the Turian Hierarchy, and even the _Destiny Ascension_. In comparison, a frigate was little more than a speck of dust.

"I assume you want to stay on the bridge for the jump, Garrus?" Cassius said, sounding amused.

"I like windows," Garrus confirmed. "It's the sniper in me. Never feels the same looking at a screen."

The Captain chuckled knowingly.

"I'll be in the CIC. Helm, jump at your discretion."

"Aye sir."

In theory, a mass relay jump was an ordinary operation, no different from taking off or docking. Something that required skill and precision, yes, but an ordinary operation all the same.

In practice...

Garrus watched as the eezo core spun and glowed, magnificently bright as the _Unconquerable_ sent its energy pulse, telling the ageless machine their mass and destination, asking it to please send them on their way.

In practice, every jump was a miracle. The bridge went from so amazingly bright that Garrus envied the pilot his lightscreen, to pitch black in the space of a few heartbeats.

"Jump complete, running diagnostics."

And because Garrus was looking out those windows, he was the first to spot that they were not alone. There was a single white and yellow ship barely visible in the distance, in line with the mass relay and thus the _Unconquerable_.

"I believe that's our rendezvous," Garrus said.

"Sensors detect no ships in range." Argosa, the sensor technician's voice came over the intercom.

Garrus shared a look with the pilot, who was seeing exactly what he was seeing. "Double-check that, sensors. I'm looking at a ship, straight ahead."

"Uh, aye sir, double-checking."

Garrus headed back to the CIC, which was an oasis of calm. Captain Cassius stood on the raised platform looking at the holographic representation of the local space around them. There were two dots, one representing the relay, the other the _Unconquerable_. Garrus flared his mandibles and joined the Captain, and a moment later a third dot appeared in the shapeless blob that designated a vessel of unknown configuration.

"We've got it on visual now, sir," Argosa said, mildly annoyed, "beware there's a lightlag, and heat sensors still claim there's nothing but empty space. It's making analysing it a hassle."

Cassius met Garrus with a brief smile, that of a commanding officer acknowledging the rules of the game had just changed. "Learn something new every day."

"Seems that way, doesn't it."

The Spectre office's intel files said the salarians were on the brink of discovering stealth technology sufficiently good to shroud an entire ship. Intel had been making that claim, credibly, for the past two hundred years or so. There was always just one problem, one issue, left to fix.

It seemed the humans had paid no attention to the woes of the salarian top scientists. Returning to the Citadel with confirmation of stealth tech in potentially hostile hands was worth the trip alone. And if these humans could be brought in on the side of the Citadel, well. Krogan ships were pure quantity, no quality. One stealth-ship could take out an entire taskgroup on its own if they could not figure out where to return fire.

Problem being, the humans were no doubt aware that the _Unconquerable_ couldn't see them very well either. They were holding still because they felt like it, and Garrus had no doubt the obvious location – directly in line of sight with whichever ship came out of the relay – was intended to emphasise just that.

He _hated_ being played.

But turian colonies were at great risk, and once the Turian Hierarchy was down, there was no stopping the Krogan Clans from rolling over every Citadel space world they felt like. And Spectres didn't have the luxury of handing off a task, simply because they felt uneasy. Garrus shrugged.

"Well, lets let them know we're suitably impressed. Hail them, please."

And that's when Garrus heard a human voice for the first time, smooth and hard, pitch as high as an asari.

_"This is Director Miranda Lawson of the CSS _Normandy_. You are outgunned and trespassing in Cerberus space. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. If you resist, we will open fire."_

Captain Cassius' eyes narrowed, and Garrus found himself drawing a cold breath. They looked at each other, realising the situation had just taken a dark turn. Weapon systems offline. No useful intel on human ship combat capabilities. Not to mention a ship that wasn't trackable. And no buoy to call for backup.

It was Garrus who broke the silence. "Do you suppose that was a standard human greeting and we just had a translator glitch?"

Cassius grinned, but sobered quickly. "Lets not chance it. How do you want to play this, Garrus?"

Captain Cassius was a veteran, he'd been a Captain when Garrus was just a teenager in basic training. Yet now he deferred to him, as a Spectre. It was likely the other ship was not bluffing when they claimed they had them outmatched, but Captain Cassius and his crew would do their best to at least put a dent in the human ship before their lives were ended. And no turian Captain would ever willingly surrender their ship, it was anathema. Even now, Garrus had to fight the instinct to dismiss surrender outright. Spectres were supposed to operate on an entirely different level. Sacrificing dignity, honour, the core of what it meant to be turian, to win a war? That was something a Spectre would do.

"Lets comply with their 'request'," he said slowly, keenly feeling the pressure of the sheer wrongness of his words. "I'm not going to roll over though. When they come on board, I'll start talking, break out the gift list. I'll do my best to get at least your crew out of this, Captain, I sw—"

—suddenly, klaxons wailed throughout the ship and the weapons and sensors technicians broke into a flurry of movement as their screens flashed.

"Report." Captain Cassius demanded calmly.

"Torpedo signature," Kael, the weapons officer said with the composed voice that came with endless drills. "Tracking... stand by."

"They're firing on us already?" Cassius growled, low, and Garrus was inclined to agree. But then, the humans wouldn't know the Citadel war conventions that strictly described the minimum amount of 'reasonable time' to be afforded a ship to surrender. But...

"Tracking confirmed. It's not aimed at us, sir."

Cassius didn't even blink. "And they're not shooting at themselves, so what is going on?"

It was Argosa who spoke up. "Sir, I had a heat signature, just for a second when the torpedo launched. It's a second ship. Very, very faint, I could barely pick it up. It's gone now. But that's definitely where the torpedo is coming from."

"Another stealthed ship." Garrus surmised.

"The torpedo is heading for the _Normandy_," the weapon's officer supplied, "Impact in 10 sec-. Scratch that. Torpedo detonation well off the _Normandy's_ port bow."

"That was a warning shot." Captain Cassius wasn't asking.

"Yes, sir."

"Opposite side of the _Unconquerable_. Thoughtful of them," Garrus said.

"Picking up a comm signal. The new ship is hailing the _Normandy_. Wide signal, I think they want us to listen."

"Then lets hear it."

The second human voice Garrus ever heard was an amazing contrast to the first. Strong where the other had been smooth, commanding rather than merely hard.

_"This is Commander Shepard of the SSV _Normandy_. That alien ship is under _my_ protection. Break off, Miranda, or I swear this time I will destroy you."_

If the human was as impressed by the commanding tone as Garrus was, there was no trace. _"This system is under Cerberus control now, Shepard. And you know that I have you heavily outgunned."_

_"Fifth fleet disagrees with you, Admiral Hackett sends his regards. They're fifteen minutes behind me."_

There was a pause on the comm, then the smooth voice turned cold. _"That is still plenty of time to destroy _you_."_

The comm ended. Silence descended aboard the _Unconquerable_. Then Garrus shrugged. "I'm sure there's a history there."

"Multiple torpedo launches, mass accelerator shots," Kael reported. "All between the two ships, none in our direction." Several beats passed. "They're performing successful evasives. No hits."

"If they don't destroy each other, maybe we'll find out," Cassius said. "Designate them CSS and SSV for now. What kind of human logic names two ships the same thing? Especially the same as an enemy."

Garrus frowned, walking over to peer over Argosa's shoulder at the raw sensor readouts. "The ideological kind where two tribes at war both claim the closest ties to a moral concept, unless I miss my mark."

Cassius snorted. "If you say so, you're the Spectre."

The hypothesis didn't feel entirely correct, and Garrus had to admit, that part of his mind that was always solving puzzles and looking for clues was very curious. It meant _something_, of that he was certain.

That warning shot hadn't been a warning, it had been a challenge. It was clear those two commanding officers had no interest in avoiding each other. Humans might be different, of course. Maybe naming ships the same thing was a species quirk. Or maybe he'd misread the hostility in their voices. But he didn't think so. It was definitely personal. The _Unconquerable_ simply happened to be their latest battlefield.

No, his hypothesis was no doubt not just incorrect, but dead wrong.

So then, what did it mean?

"Should we engage?" the weapons officer asked. The two ships on his monitor maneuvered around the incoming fire with ease that spoke of veteran crews that didn't just react, but predicted the enemy's next action.

Garrus looked at Cassius. "That would fall under the purview of the ship's safety," he acknowledged slowly, "which is your field. But I'm not confident we have all the pieces to this puzzle yet." Yet even as he said it, Garrus wondered if this really was the best time to let the detached investigator part of his mind call the shots. Garrus the fighter had already picked a side: that determined human who'd claimed the _Unconquerable_ as under their protection.

But Cassius merely nodded.

"Agreed. Lets see how this plays out. Weapons, go to standby, gradual buildup if you can, try not to spook them. Helm, move us away, lets not catch any stray fire. Nice and slow. Sensors, give the Spectre something to work with, do we have any readings at all?"

"Yes, sir." Argosa sounded relieved. "I can extrapolate fairly certain positions by looking at the origin points of their weapons fire, and whatever is hiding their heat signature is not as effective while they're firing. It's giving me a better look at their emissions, and a focus point for the optical sensors."

"Tactical appraisal? Is our apparent rescuer able to protect us like they said?"

"From the weapons fire we're tracking, the _Normandy_, er, the CSS _Normandy_ seems to have a lot more firepower just like they claimed. The SSV's torpedoes are getting picked off by the CSS's point defence lasers almost as fast as they launch. But mass accelerators are no joy, they're both really fast and agile, I think they can keep dodging around each other all day. At least until one of their pilots make a mistake. I don't know what kind of armour the SSV is packing under the hull, but I think one hit is all it would take – they're no larger than we are." She paused, peering at her raw output. "In fact... SSV looks strangely like us, sir, it has the same dimensions as our... frigates... crap."

Garrus leaned forward, willing to see what Argosa had just seen. "What is it?"

"I think that _is_ one of ours, sir. Or at least parts of one. I've got a database match. Remember the scout ship that went missing at relay 314 a few years back?"

"Yes." He'd read the investigation, no trace of it had ever been found. He'd lost a friend on that ship. "You're saying this is that scout?"

"Heavily modified, the power signature doesn't match at all, they've gutted her and put in a new engine. But the hull? Silhouette is a match, that's ours."

Garrus crossed his arms and took a breath, staring at the shape on the screen, familiar with just enough alterations to make the ship appear as alien as it was. His mind raced with the implications; the fate of the crew, the effect this had on the humans' willingness to negotiate. On _his_ willingness to negotiate. Did it change anything? Should it? He'd been ready to trust this human only a moment ago, on less information than he had now.

Argosa craned her neck to look at him, quizzical at his silence. He fed as much mock disappointment into his voice as he could.

"And here I was hoping for an exciting first contact like when the Dalatrass pulled the Primarch's fringe. Guess they won't be overcome with curiosity about us after all."

She grinned and turned back to her monitor. Garrus stared at the ships displayed on it, his thoughts running wild.

One of them wanted to board his ship. The other was a spiritless ghostship. He shouldn't want to side with either, yet...

It had to be the voice. That commanding declaration to protect a complete stranger. That's what it all came back to.

Hadn't he always wanted to make a difference, like that? He'd joined C-Sec to be a cop and he'd believed in the work he'd done. Investigations had simply happened to be something he was good at.

"But it means they've probably reverse engineered our technology," he continued, letting himself analyse the situation on automation.

Cassius shook his head. "Looking at these numbers," he indicated the weapon's officer's monitor where the battle was still raging, "I don't think we had anything they needed. Stripping our scout might have given them a few ideas – they'll have a good estimate of how hard _we_ can hit – but at most it shaved a few months off their research." He paused and gave Garrus a knowing look. "And whatever happened, it was several years ago."

Which was a not-so-subtle kick in the ass to consider the here and now. Garrus flared, feeling mildly sheepish. Hesitation got people killed, and it was high time he made a choice since it was his to make.

No choice, really.

"Alright, we're siding with the SSV. They prevented us from being boarded and I don't want to be any more grateful for the rescue than I have to be. Apparently humans are supposed to respect strength, so lets show them what the Turian Hierarchy can do." There was a scatter of cheers in the CIC. Reason for decision stated for the record, he added with a self-deprecating shrug. "Besides, I've always had a thing for the underdog."

The air in the CIC felt light as he sensed the crew agree with him. They had the same info he did, they knew the score. Captain Cassius nodded decisively and spoke with the ease of a shiphandler veteran,

"Engaging combat on Spectre authority. Helm, ready evasives. Weapons, status change, alter designation SSV to friendly. Alter designation CSS to hostile. Target the CSS and fire at will."

"Aye sir."

Garrus turned to Kael, who was busily carrying out the orders. "Aim carefully, make sure your shots don't go wide or near the SSV. The enemy of our enemy makes for uneasy alliances, lets not create any misunderstandings."

"Of course, sir," the weapons officer said with a voice Garrus thought sounded a bit insulted. And rightfully so, Garrus had been telling the man how to do his job. He nodded in apology, and Kael continued, "But sir, I doubt we'll be able to hit them. Their stealth keeps fooling our targeting systems. It's impossible to get a firing solution for the mass accelerator, and the torpedoes will be extremely vulnerable to point defences while they reacquire lock."

"Do the best you can. At least we'll distract them."

"Aye sir. Launching torpedoes."

They watched the monitor as it tracked the two simultaneously fired torpedoes, one from port, one from starboard, streak towards their target, then unceremoniously vanish. "Torpedoes destroyed by CSS point defences."

That's when the _Unconquerable_ was plunged into darkness as the power throughout the ship went out. It took Garrus a moment to realise he wasn't dead, and that the faint glow of monitors and emergency lights meant it wasn't absolutely pitch black. Then a sudden flurry of reports came in all at once.

"We've lost helm control."

"Energy distribution control is down."

"Weapon systems aren't respo- huh!"

Garrus had activated his suit's magboot lock even before his conscious mind recognised the floating sensation he was experiencing as a sudden lack of gravity. When his mind did catch up, he grabbed his helmet, fit it to his suit and closed the airseal in a single move that had been thoroughly drilled into every turian during basic. The motion was mirrored by every crewmember around him in perfect synchronisation.

"Report," Cassius calmly spoke over the suit comm.

"We've got a virus in the computer, it's infected all key systems."

Garrus recognised the voice as one of the computer techs. She sounded agitated; they hated anything that upset their orderly systems.

"Flush it."

"Trying sir, it's adapting too fast for our counter-cyberwarfare VIs to handle, faster than any VI I've ever seen."

"Understood. What do we still have control of?" Cassius asked.

"Sensors and comms," Argosa said. "They're sluggish, but they don't seem to be targeted."

Garrus sighed. "Well. At least we got their attention."


	3. The Commander

Dead in space, there was little for the crew of the _Unconquerable_ to do but watch the battle unfold. It was a safe assumption the cyberwarfare attack had come from the CSS as a direct response to the _Unconquerable_ picking sides. Though Garrus was sure the humans, either side, weren't terribly impressed by the combat display of the Turian Hierarchy right there and then. Not quite the triumphant gesture of a dependable comrade-in-arms he'd intended. And considering the SSV was still fighting, either they hadn't been attacked by the virus – or they'd successfully dealt with it. More intel he wished he'd had before jumping into the system. Intel he was beginning to suspect might never find its way back to the Citadel.

"We didn't know they could do that." Cassius said, sounding perfectly composed, simply acknowledging that their enemy had outmaneuvered them, and that this was going to hurt. "These humans are... something else."

"I'll add suspicion of possessing illegal AIs to my report for the council," Garrus replied. "With my luck, they'll send me right back here to deal with it."

There was a faint snort over the comm, from who, he couldn't tell. Leaning over Argosa's chair again, he glanced at the chronometer. Fifteen minutes, the human with the commanding voice had said. They just had to hold on a little while longer.

So naturally, that's when it all went to hell.

"Consecutive sequence torpedo launch from the CSS, ten heat signatures. They mean business, that must've busted their launch— Captain! They're firing at _us_!"

Garrus' heart sank as he turned to the holographic representation of the surrounding space. The restrictions on lightspeed sensors, even at these small ranges, meant what they were seeing had happened a few moments ago. Yet what they were seeing was clear. Death hurling towards them at increasing speeds of sublight. Immobile, unprotected and weaponless, there was nothing they could do but watch.

But then…

…for a brief moment, the SSV _Normandy_ appeared to be in two places at once, as the old light continued to carry its old location, but newer light registered its microsecond precision FTL jump, interposing itself between the _Unconquerable_ and the incoming torpedo salvo, its functional point defence weapon systems working to pick off the multiple torpedoes that had come expecting a cold, unprotected, easy kill.

They hadn't had to do that. The _Unconquerable_ was dead in space, there was nothing for them to gain by intervening. If nothing else, they should have used the CSS's distraction to try to score a hit of their own. But instead they were risking their ship to _protect_ the _Unconquerable_.

Why? Why were they so important to these humans?

"That is one bold pilot," Garrus heard the navigator mutter. Garrus himself didn't know much about FTL jumps in combat, but he could easily believe the amount of precision required for a maneuver like that was extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Every sniper knew how quickly a millimeter at the barrel became a meter at the target, and when the measurements were in the thousands, well...

But consecutive sequence launches were lethal for a reason; sometimes it was worth overheating the launchers in order to overwhelm an enemy target and finish them off decisively. With so many torpedoes in space at once, it was easy for one or two to get lucky even against the fastest point defences. Especially when the enemy had considerably more firepower to begin with.

"Torpedo detonation. Hit to the SSV." The weapon's officer sounded grim, "Damage to their midship undersection. Reading a hullbreach, they're shedding ablative armour and venting atmo."

Assuming similar layout to the _Unconquerable_, that meant their hangar and storage bay. As long as their section seals triggered properly, that hit – on its own – was perfectly survivable.

Unfortunately, there were two lucky torpedoes.

"Torpedo detonation, starboard. The SSV's starboard drive is damaged, they're drifting on inertia. Reading internal explosions."

For a ship that had survived so long by being agile, that was the death-knell.

And the CSS wasn't finished.

"The CSS is firing mass accelerator." There was a cold pause. "Direct hit, midship upper section. Complete hull rupture." Garrus closed his eyes. "The SSV is breaking apart."

There was silence in CIC for several moments, the darkness contributing to the feel of a tomb. Garrus was expecting the impact klaxons to begin wailing any moment, and each second they didn't seemed to stretch surrealistically long.

"They're launching escape pods." Argosa's voice was nearly gentle. Maybe because she realised, as Garrus did, that they were next. He turned to give Cassius the go-ahead to give the order to abandon ship, not that he would need it – Garrus had no intention of exerting Spectre authority to demand they fight uselessly – but a high-pitched growl got his attention.

"Bare-faced barbarians!"

"Argosa?"

"They're firing on the _escape pods_!"

"_What!?_" That was... you didn't do that. Not even krogan did that. The ship was your target, the crew wasn't. Escape pods couldn't dominate a system or blockade a relay. "Hail them!" he demanded, even before he had the slightest clue what he was going to say.

The smooth voice that sounded in his earpiece didn't give him a chance to find out.

_"This is Director Lawson. I have nothing to say to you. Prepare to be boarded."_

Ah, so that's why they hadn't fired. With their protector dead, they intended to take the _Unconquerable_ alive.

Over his dead body. "We refuse. Firing on escape pods is against the Citadel war conventions. Cease fire or I will be forced to consider this a declaration of war. The Citadel will take action against this."

He hoped dearly that human intel was incomplete when it came to the current strength of the Citadel Defence Force's fleet, or his bluff would fall completely flat. The humans could be engaging in monstrous slaughter of civilian populations and the Citadel would still not spare even a taskforce, much less a fleet.

And unfortunately, the smooth voice did not sound impressed. _"You are not in a position to make threats. The Citadel has no authority in Cerberus space and your armed warship is a legitimate target under_ human _war conventions as you have intruded on _our_ territory. We are only defending ourselves, and we cannot allow you to interfere with humanity. We are not puppets you can use to do your bidding."_

Garrus was glad the transmission was audio only, because he flared in surprise. That had sounded suspiciously specific. His mission was classified... but there had been talk of approaching the humans to help deal with the Krogan for months. All it would have taken was one leak aboard the Citadel. The humans did do business with the batarians, whose embassy was known to play fast and loose with the secrecy requirements on occasion.

He managed to contain his sigh, aware the audio pickups would send it to the human. _I came here to make allies, dammit, not enemies. _He glanced at Argosa's monitor, where six small dots were still blinking. They had stopped firing, at least. There was still a chance; he didn't have to delay them long until that human fleet showed up. He drew a breath, forced his voice to sound reasonable.

"You're right that we have no authority in your space, and you have my apologies for our inadvertent intrusion. We are on a diplomatic mission and believed we were welcome to this system. It was an honest mistake." In front of him, Argosa was shaking her head in disgust. The Hierarchy did not grovel. Garrus agreed, but he was a Spectre first. "But please realise hostility won't do you any good. Before, we didn't know or care about your species. Now, we do. You won't be able to hide from the galactic community anymore. I'm a Council Spectre, here on their direct authority. If you shoot us down or take us prisoners, another Spectre will be sent to find out what happened to us, and they won't knock on the front door like I did."

Garrus glanced at the chrono. "Now, you heard Commander Shepard; their fleet will be here any moment. You might have time to destroy us, maybe even pick off all the escape pods – but wreckage tells its own story, and you can't be sure what exactly they'll find. So why don't we call it a draw? They live, we live, you live."

There was a pause on the other end, presumably the human checking their own chronometer, hopefully thinking it over. Then the voice was back, cold as ice.

_"If Shepard is still alive, tell her she owes me. Lawson out."_

The channel cut, and a moment later the lights came on in the CIC, followed by the monitors, then the gentle sensation of gravity gradually increasing to prevent anyone still floating from falling face flat. Garrus let a few moments pass, then took his helmet off, testing the air carefully. It seemed fine.

"They've gone to FTL," Argosa reported.

"Sure? They might have gone back to stealth?" Garrus asked, not quite ready to count his blessings.

Argosa shook her head. "They were bleeding heat pretty badly towards the end, don't think they could hide it all. They're gone."

Garrus let out a breath of relief, amazed he'd pulled it off, but feeling empty as well. This was one clusterfuck disaster of a first contact if he'd ever heard of one. Sparatus was going to have his fringe.

Captain Cassius, now commanding officer of a ship no longer about to be destroyed, simply went right back to work. "Full diagnostic on all ship systems, starting with propulsion and navigation. And lets be good neighbours and pick those escape pods up. Spectre?"

Garrus nodded. Six of eight pods. Fairly good odds. Hopefully their commanding officer was one of the survivors, though he had the sneaking suspicion the other ship had deliberately targeted the escape pods she was most likely to be on, first. Why had they – _she_ – been so insistent on protecting the _Unconquerable_?

"Lets just hope their fleet doesn't arrive as we do and assume we're the ones that blew them up. Wouldn't that be a fitting end to this day."

Or maybe he was just being cynical. Captain Cassius simply nodded though, as if it was a perfectly reasonable assumption. Veteran at ferrying Spectres with all their foibles, indeed. "Lets set up a continuous transmission stating our peaceful intentions to the human fleet," he said, then went about recording said transmission.

"I'm still not detecting any..." Argosa broke off, then snorted. "Never mind."

Terrifying thought, a whole fleet able to sneak into a system under stealth, and the first thing you'd know of them was when they opened fire. The krogan blitzes were bad enough, but at least you could see them coming even when you knew there was no way to stop them.

Garrus shook his head, and then his shoulders, trying to work out some of the tension that had cropped up from the... oh, call it a 'battle', though the Hierarchy would probably label it as an 'incident' for the records. The rest of the crew were going about their after-action duties. They were all trained professionals of course, but they were also a mostly veteran crew – happy to be alive, but there was no sense of the exhilaration rush that younger people were prone to. Still, morale was always a factor, and he was happy to find that there didn't seem to be any bruised egos... quite possibly aside from the computer techs. That had to have been an AI.

"Spectre?" A polite but unfamiliar voice sounded over the comm.

"Yes?"

"First escape pod coming on board now, sir."

"Understood, I'll be right down." He nodded to Captain Cassius, then headed for the storage bay.

Controlled chaos reigned. The hangar hatch was open; the ship protected from the vacuum of space by a shimmering mass effect energy field. Some of the equipment and machinery stored there had been moved further into the bay to make space for six escape pods, making the lift's exit area a bit too cramped. Additionally, the ship surgeon had commandeered a respectable chunk of the remaining free space and was setting up a make-shift place for treatment. Badly injured humans could be taken up to the medbay, but for simple scrapes and burns, it was probably more appropriate to keep them all here, together.

And apparently, ship security thought so too. Six armed guards stood around the bay, weapons sheathed but looking no less ready to intervene for it. Garrus considered requesting they leave, but decided not to. The humans _should_ be aware they were coming onto the _Unconquerable_, not the enemy ship, but one or more of the escape pods could have been damaged and their sensors non-functional. Just a safety precaution. Garrus left his own weapons in place, but went to stand in the center of the bay, where the new arrivals could see him clearly.

The first escape pod looked undamaged, and the engineering crew guided it into the bay using tethers and mass fields. The operation was made considerably easier by the escape pod's original turian design having been left mostly intact; it interfaced directly with the _Unconquerable_'s pod retrieval system.

When the hatch opened, four humans fanned out immediately, two with raised weapons, two without, all wearing hardsuit armour, complete with helmets. The weapons immediately went on him.

"Welcome to the Turian Hierarchy ship _Unconquerable_," he said, trying to sound as calm as could be expected when held at gunpoint. "I'm Garrus Vakarian, the mission commander. You have my assurances you are guests, not prisoners. We're going to pick up all escape pods, but two were destroyed by the other ship." Then he held still, leaving the initiative to stand down, or shoot, to the humans.

And got his first good look at them outside of the much-lacking mission intel's few pictures and recordings. He wasn't sure if they were exactly what he had expected, or nothing like it. They were obviously military; the way they stood, the way they held their weapons, but Garrus wasn't certain beyond that. Too easy to make the assumption that because their body-language signals looked like something he could interpret correctly, they meant the same thing. But if he was going to put a word to them, it would be 'watchful', rather than 'hostile'. That was a good sign, right?

And try as he might, he wasn't able to pick out anything that would designate rank or station. Granted, that would be the point. Garrus could be picked out from the rest of the _Unconquerable_'s crew due to wearing his own private armour rather than the hardsuit army uniform the rest of the crew wore, but no amount of looking at him would tell anyone who or what he was.

No introduction seemed to be forthcoming from the humans. They stayed looking at each other until the second escape pod was secured. Only then, when five more humans had stepped out, some with weapons ready but not pointed at Garrus, did one of those who had stepped out of the first pod make a quick movement of the hand to the others, who immediately stood down. Well, save for one, but a second, just as quick motion, convinced that human too. Overall, Garrus was impressed with their discipline considering they were just off a dying ship, facing an unknown situation. And now he saw a potential leader to address.

"Commander Shepard?"

The human's helmeted head moved, first in likely surprise at being spoken to, then in a shake. And a moment later the humans turned to each other, obviously speaking through their suit communicators. Finally, the maybe-leader turned back to Garrus and spoke, the voice deeper than the ones he'd heard on the comm,

"No, I'm Lieutenant Commander Alenko, Shepard's second officer. She went to the bridge to get our pilot. Did...?"

The human broke off, but the request was easy enough to understand. Garrus activated his comm. "Argosa, the forward escape pod, what happened to it?" He almost dreaded the answer, and the few short moments it took her to find out felt like a small eternity as the possible scenarios created by the answer played themselves out in his mind on fast forward.

_"It's intact, they're bringing it in next."_

Garrus sighed in relief, and was amused to see the human do the same thing.

"Any sign of their fleet yet?"

_"No, sir."_

"I see. Thank you." He closed the comm, then smiled at the human. "Well, I'm sure they'll be here soon, we'll transfer you over once we're sure they won't shoot at us."

"Uh. Yes, the fleet. Thank you." There was a pause. "You should speak to Commander Shepard when she gets here."

Garrus had a hard time reading the human. That had sounded like hesitation. Didn't they want to go with the fleet for some reason? Impossible to tell by voice alone, their body language was too closed off, and the humans had kept their helmets on. A sensible precaution in a hangar with an active mass effect field keeping air in. If it failed, for just a moment, Garrus would be in serious trouble. But first contact situations sometimes required concessions to safety in order to build trust. Or so the Spectre first contact pamphlet had claimed.

It was turning out eerily prophetic.

Having exchanged those few simple words made the wait for the next escape pod more bearable. Garrus tried not to crowd the humans as they gathered around it, both to protect it against the turians, and to help their comrades. One of the humans had taken a first aid kit from the other pods and was hovering particularly; trained medic, Garrus judged after sharing a quick look with the _Unconquerable_'s surgeon.

And unfortunately, this pod wasn't intact. Garrus couldn't tell for certain, but it looked like it had been clipped by the SSV's explosion. The hatch popped open followed by a billow of smoke, not deterring the armour-clad humans in the least as they helped their shipmates out. Two of them, and compared to the other humans, these were distinctive. One wasn't in a hardsuit, for one, and seemed less... compact, less sturdy than the others. And injured.

"Doctor, Joker has a broken arm."

Garrus was rather glad that he wasn't the center of attention just then, because he surprised himself with the relief at hearing the protector's voice. And she did have an emblem or insignia on the hardsuit, consisting of simple thin straight lines and angles, with a red triangle on one end. She glanced his way briefly as she surveyed the entire bay, but then apparently dismissed him in favour of watching the surgeon and the human medic tend to the injured one. Though somehow it didn't feel like she was deliberately ignoring him, or demonstrating his unimportance to her. No, she simply had different priorities; her crew came first, the turian Spectre could take a number and get in line.

He could respect that.

He heard the translator's hopeless warbles as it tried to parse the medical jargon and was having no luck, and was amused at the short, simple words the surgeons immediately took to using. True experts, both of them.

"We need to go to the medbay," the _Unconquerable_'s surgeon finally said, and the human medic nodded reluctantly. The commander's head turned in Garrus' direction.

"Go on, send someone along," he replied to the unspoken question. She nodded.

"Williams. Go with them. No (warble)."

Garrus twitched a bit as the translator attempted, and failed, the last word. Presumably, the human had told the assigned guard to not make a mess in sickbay, but the translator wasn't sure.

The Commander took another look at her crew, now with an additional escape pod secured, two more on the way in. Then, and only then, did she step into the center of the bay and stopped a short but respectful distance away from Garrus. As much has he hadn't had her focus before, he had it now, fully and completely. It was time for business. She took her helmet off, and Garrus met a human face-to-face for the first time. Her skin looked almost soft, and there was a fine sheen of wetness on it that glistened in the bay's lights. He thought he saw exhaustion, recognisable even in aliens. Then he met her eyes, and blinked as he realised that the faint glow coming from them was not natural, human or not. Her lips twitched as though she'd read his mind.

"I'm Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance Navy."

"Garrus Vakarian, Council Spectre. On behalf of the ship and crew, thank you for intervening on our behalf." Ironic, considering how the situation had turned out. Didn't seem lost on the human, and yet...

She was exhausted, yes; but there was also strength. Before him stood someone who had lost her ship, her command, and no doubt friends, but who also knew beyond a doubt that she had won. And in that victory, she had denied her enemies precisely what they had been after, even from a significant disadvantage.

Strength, pride, and fearlessness. As a Spectre, he was pleased to have confirmation that humans would be effective counters to the Krogan Clans.

As just Garrus, he was impressed.

"How about we call it even?" she replied, just as diplomatically, with a quirk of her lips. Oh, who were they kidding. Neither of them were diplomats, and that was working out just fine.

"Fine with me. We'll get you transferred over to your fleet as soon as they get here."

There was a pause, and she shared a brief look with the human Garrus had spoken with earlier.

"Ah. Unfortunately, Spectre, we'll have to impose on your hospitality a while."

"How so?"

"I was bluffing. The fleet is still back at Arcturus."

Garrus blinked, incredulously. She couldn't possibly have, could she?

The moment stretched. The human regarded him calmly, her head tilted, mirroring his. "They're not coming," she clarified, just in case.

He couldn't help it. He started laughing. The sheer audacity to claim having overwhelming force when no help would be coming, it was a very, very turian kind of a joke. He worried he was about to cause an interstellar incident right there and then, but a moment later there was a clucking from the human that his translator rendered as chuckling, and her body language grew more languid. He got his voice under control, though not enough to hide his mirth.

"Well played, Commander. You had everyone completely fooled."

Her lips twitched upwards, slightly lopsided. He mentally catalogued it as an impish grin. "It's a habit."

Garrus decided he liked this human. "Arcturus huh. As it just happens, we were headed that way. Why don't we give you a lift?" He had no idea how well the subtlety would carry across the species boundaries, but apparently it worked very well, because he got another one of those lip movements that was clearly a smile.

"What a generous offer, thank you."

Garrus grinned and gestured back to the elevator. "I don't actually know where Arcturus is," he confessed gamely. "Would you please join me in the CIC?"

She shrugged with her shoulders, then turned to her crew. "Alenko, you're in charge, stay with the pods." The human she spoke to watched her with crossed arms, and something unspoken passed between them. Then Shepard simply sighed. "Vega, with me."

Of course they'd want to protect their commanding officer while on an alien ship. That was fine with him. Someone else might have been insulted at the implication that they weren't to be trusted, but Garrus had been on security detail for VIPs before.

Besides, he wasn't entirely certain what kind of impression they'd made on the humans. For all he knew, the human second-in-command was worried about their lack of competence, rather than their lack of trustworthiness. He'd have to find that out. Yet from what he could read of the humans as they stepped into the elevator with him, there was neither fear nor weariness.

They respected strength in combat, Sparatus had said, and despite the _Unconquerable_'s best attempt, they'd failed spectacularly at demonstrating that. But maybe they didn't need to win, they just had to prove they were willing to die trying. The krogan certainly were, they kept throwing cannon fodder at the turian lines, heedless of their losses, able to replace anything in short order. Superior tech, training, and martial discipline could make up for imbalanced size of forces to some degree, but not to the juggernaut-sized difference of the Krogan Clans.

So where did the humans fit on the galactic food chain? He spent the elevator ride looking closely at his guests. The one named Vega hadn't removed his helmet, but Shepard's eyes stood out in the darkness of the lift, clearly glowing, and clearly artificial. Were all humans augmented? Had being augmented made her the commanding officer, or had she been augmented because she was given command?

Questions. So many questions. But at least he was still alive to ask them. And with any luck...

They arrived at the CIC, and Commander Shepard strode out and towards the galaxy map as though she owned this ship too, ignoring the security guards that immediately levelled their weapons at her until Garrus waved them off.

…with any luck, she would provide him with the answers soon enough.


	4. The Humans

"Plain simple water, and levo emergency rations, best the house can do. I'm told it tastes like wood."

Captain Cassius had graciously offered his quarters for Garrus to speak to Commander Shepard in private, and they were seated in the small corner set aside specifically for the informal meetings that didn't belong in the comm room. It had turned out they had Arcturus on their starcharts as an indexed but not named system. Said starcharts had been updated to reflect the new intel, and Garrus had felt his stomach drop for the second time that day when he realised how many uncharted, inactive relays there were in this region. Or more precisely, formerly inactive relays. Citadel had, many centuries ago, simply stamped the systems Garrus suspected now belonged to the humans with a big "do not enter" sign and left them alone. It had been assumed the Batarian Hegemony would get around to settling the region, eventually. At some point. Maybe.

"High quality wood," Shepard said once she'd managed to swallow her first bite.

Garrus grinned and made a mental note to carry edible food for the next time he was sent to a first contact situation, and then hid his grin turning chagrined at the thought, as this was surely the very last time he had to deal with this. He was holding a datapad that had the completely useless first draft of the request for assistance, as well as the gift list, and was wondering how to bring it up. And that was made slightly more complicated by the nagging suspicion that Commander Shepard already knew what he was going to request, and why.

Diplomacy was just not his thing. At least Commander Shepard had turned out easy to get along with, so far at least. Certainly no pricklier than the average asari. And Garrus was feeling more confident about his ability to read her by the minute.

"Again, we're very grateful for the rescue, and I regret the loss of your ship and crew." Not empty platitudes, not from him. He'd lost too much to say it without meaning it. The human seemed to sense that.

"You must've known you didn't stand a chance when you launched those torpedoes."

Garrus scratched at his collar. "Ah, we had a fair idea that it wouldn't be easy, but the cyberwarfare attack came as a complete surprise." He tilted his head, and considered for a brief moment before tossing out a probe. "AIs are forbidden in Citadel space, so we don't have any on our ships."

Shepard chewed on the ration bar, then nodded. "Probably sensible of you, actually. Once one side starts equipping their ships it becomes an arms race that's almost impossible to win."

And that was his confirmation that it had been an AI. Somehow, he should've been happier. "How do you protect yourselves?"

"Either by having superior hardware, which is very difficult against Cerberus, or by dumbing our systems down. We've isolated all ship systems that don't need to be networked, and there's an automatic switch to shut off all wireless access completely the moment a hostile target is detected. Any networking that needs to be done after that is done by hardlines. The AIs can't get to anything that won't accept an incoming signal."

"Ahh. Do you mind if I forward that to my superiors?" Which he would do either way, but it didn't hurt to be polite.

"Go right ahead. You would've figured it out eventually."

"Maybe. Before today, the only AI I ever fought against was a glorified gambling machine on the Presidium that somehow gained sentience. Until we discovered it, all it did was funnel credits. After we discovered it, it tried to blow us all up. Fortunately, I have some skill with percussive maintenance."

Commander Shepard chuckled. "You're lucky have survived a battle against EDI. She tends to prefer opening airlocks and venting the crew out."

"EDI? Is that the name of that _Normandy_'s AI?"

"Yeah. Ruthlessly efficient, hopeless sense of humour."

His curiosity peaked. "You talk like you know her. If I may make that observation." Because getting off topic was probably a bad idea. He fiddled with the datapad. Shepard watched him, then simply shrugged.

"I do. Or did."

"That _Normandy_ used to be your ship," he concluded, and read the change to her face as either surprise, or embarrassment. Or both. Possibly neither. And talking about personal things was _definitely_ a bad idea. Yet those glowing eyes didn't leave his, and she nodded.

"Yes, she was." She sounded sad. "I used to work for Cerberus, and the _Normandy_ was my ship."

"I have to admit, I'm curious. The first time I ever see a human ship, it gets fired on by another. It seemed personal." And his mind was just determined to avoid the gift list at all cost and start digging into the stuff that would cause an interstellar incident. Unrelenting curiosity was a useful trait during an investigation. During a negotiation, not to much.

"Personal... yes, and no." Shepard's hands wrapped around the water-glass. "Cerberus used to be allies of the Systems Alliance, and Miranda used to be my XO. She wasn't always trigger-happy like that. We were... well, I wouldn't say we were friends. I used to think she was a stuffed up brat, she thought I was an (warble) mongrel." Her lips turned up in a smile. "But we worked together through a lot of hard missions." Something in her expressive face darkened. "But then Cerberus went rogue, and something changed. It wasn't just Miranda, it came down from the top of Cerberus' command. I was lucky to get out when I did. Some of my friends... didn't."

"I'm sorry," Garrus said, the condolence genuine. "Do you have any idea what happened?"

Shepard shook her head and leaned back in the seat, "I wish I knew. One day everything was fine and we were running cavalry raids on the Union's frontier. The next, she tells me she wants to upgrade my augments, and I wake up on the operating table with a control chip in my head."

"That's..." Barbaric? Horrendous? Vile? Garrus' vocabulary came up short. "I take it since she was shooting at you, it's gone now?"

"Yeah. It didn't take immediately, I had enough control to make it off the base. I don't know if there was a mistake during installation, or if Miranda sabotaged it on purpose as some last act of defiance." She sighed and looked down into the water-glass, eyelids sliding closed, hiding the glow. Garrus' intuition stirred.

"She's the one who gave you those eyes?"

"Yes," she said, and gave him a look he interpreted as curious, and possibly surprised. "How did you know?"

"Just a guess," he deflected, while mentally patting himself on the back for his ability to read humans. Or at least this human. "Are augments common among your people?" Just so he could give Valern a conniption fit by adding an estimated number of unregistered part-synthetics outside of Citadel jurisdiction.

"They're fairly common. If you want to be a super-soldier, then Cerberus is – was – the best choice. Always top of the line augments fresh out of R&D. They didn't skimp on the tech." Her shoulders rolled, as if that little movement said all there was to add. "Anyway, I'm telling you this because I figured you deserved to know who was shooting at you, and the reason why you almost lost your ship. Cerberus hates aliens. They won't parley with you, and they'll do their damnedest to prevent more alien influence on humanity. If your people enter Cerberus systems, you will get shot at. Fair warning."

"Appreciated."

"But not all of us kill on sight." She blinked one eye, very quickly. "I usually fire a warning shot first."

Garrus stared at her a moment before his mental library on human facial expressions came through, and he chuckled.

"Is human humour always about violence?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, with a very much human smile, that Garrus was developing an affinity for. Then, she turned serious. "Lets talk business?"

Yes, Garrus informed his brain. No more distractions. "I'm assuming you already have a fair idea of why we're here?"

"Some, but we're shy on the details."

Garrus looked at the datapad with the half-finished, mostly useless speech, erased it, then started from the beginning, using his own words. As he laid the situation out, Shepard simply nodded, following his explanations without trouble, only asking for elaboration in some places. Garrus suspected he said a bit too much, or maybe a bit too earnestly. But this was for Palaven; Sparatus could go wash his face for all Garrus cared.

At the end of it all, Shepard looked thoughtful, and he found the lack of outright rejection encouraging. Anything else could be negotiated for.

"From what you're saying, the Krogan would need stopping sooner or later. Unless you're feeding me a line, it seems to me they won't stop at just Citadel space."

"Very unlikely, but our worlds will sate them a while. Right now, they're in it for revenge. The hunger will come later."

"And the genophage, it won't work again?"

Garrus shook his head. "There was work being done on a modified genophage, to reinforce what was already in place, but it was rendered completely ineffective by the cure. I'm told the salarians are scrambling to come up with a brand new one, but they're starting from scratch. We don't think they can finish it before the krogan land on Sur'kesh.

Shepard nodded, one finger tapping against the datapad that held the gift list which she had been reading. Then she sighed. "It'll be up to my superiors one way or the other, but this is a very generous gift. They will listen." Her eyes met his with a significant look, maybe a bit apologetic. "But you need to be aware that one of the things they will ask for as payment for committing ships is an agriculture-capable garden world, and it's the one thing they won't budge on."

"That is asking a lot," Garrus said, but without heat. Long as said world wasn't Palaven, it was fine with him. But the Council wouldn't be happy, no sir.

"I'm aware. But we need one, and I'll be honest with you – we're pretty desperate. About three weeks ago there was an attack against the planet Benning. It's the closest garden world to Arcturus, and the main breadbasket for the Systems Alliance. There was a ruse in a neighbouring system, the military governor's fleet went to investigate. While they were away, someone got a stealth ship into low orbit and deployed a bioweapon into the atmosphere. It's... some areas can still support growth with some work, and we've shipped every atmospheric renewer we have there. But the entire planet's season crop was lost."

Garrus sucked in a quick breath, and his head started spinning once the shock settled in. The Spectre part of his mind reluctantly added 'wilful destruction of planetary ecosystem' to his growing list of things he wouldn't enjoy putting in his report about the humans, but that the Council would need to know.

"You don't know who it was?"

"No. But believe me, we're going to find out." That was a promise of murder.

Well. That explained why these humans were willing to negotiate, and why Shepard had been so insistent on defending the _Unconquerable_ to bring these negotiations about. She had as little choice as he did.

He gestured at the ration bar, mostly eaten. She hadn't seemed to devour it like someone who was starving, and she didn't seem malnourished – not that he was certain he'd recognise it if she was. "We don't have a lot of supplies on board, but if you need, they're yours."

Shepard shook her head. "I appreciate the offer, but it's not bad yet. We've got a lot stockpiled, other allied systems are chipping in, and we're raiding Union worlds for supplies. But for the long run, the closest available garden worlds we'd be able to hold on to without spreading our forces too thin are in or near Citadel space."

Garrus cynically noted that this would be the same part of Citadel space that was currently so lightly defended as to be an open buffet to an organised fleet. "Surprised you haven't moved in to take them already, if your people are desperate."

"There were some serious plans to," Shepard admitted easily, "but when the diplomats from the Citadel turned up, it was decided to give these negotiations a go. Fighting a war on multiple fronts is usually not a good idea."

Indeed not. "Don't suppose you know what happened to the diplomats? Apparently they returned with ruffled feathers, but I wasn't privy to the details."

There was that wry humour look on Shepard's face again.

"Yeah, they ended up meeting the Reformists. They're xenophobic even against humans, and they definitely don't like aliens. But they don't have much in the way of a fleet either – they're dependant on the Systems Alliance for protection, which is why they let them go alive. Far as intel knows, your diplomats stumbled over them by pure chance."

"Reformists?"

"Yeah, our allies and part of the Exiles, but they mostly keep to themselves." She must've seen his curiosity peak, because she continued, "Believe it or not, Cerberus aren't the scariest monster in the valley. That prize goes to the Humanity Reformed colony of Eden Prime. It's one messed up place. They had several accidental eezo exposures many years ago when they were first setting up the colony, which resulted in a lot of biotics, our first generation of them. Apparently biotics was really interesting to someone in power, because then they started having 'accidents'," she did something with her fingers, emphasising that they weren't accidents after all, "and some time later they simply started deliberately exposing all pregnant women. Their neonatal mortality rate used to be horrendously high, but they got the hang of it in the last decade. Their entire youngest generation is biotic."

Garrus stared. Asari as a species were biotic because of their homeworld being eezo rich, they came by their biotics naturally. What Shepard was describing was... horrendous. That word seemed to pop up a lot in relation to the humans.

Shepard drew a breath to continue the explanation that wasn't quite over. "Us humans? We're considered adults around eighteen years old, but from about thirteen and up we have the physique and emotional stability needed to fight effectively if properly trained. The Reformists haven't been major players so far, but... soon, yeah, things might happen."

Garrus nodded in commiseration. That damn report Just Kept Growing. So naturally, he asked another question.

"Maybe you could tell me a bit about the different human..." What was the word again? "...factions? What is the Exiles?" Because he really needed to know these things before his people were committed to the humans for safety.

Shepard nodded, and took a drink of water before settling in for an explanation.

"We're the Systems Alliance, part of the Exile alignment. We're called that because we don't have any forces in the Sol system, where the human homeworld is. We used to be based on Earth, but when the fourth war started the Union alignment kicked us off the planet, making Arcturus our capital."

"Union alignment?"

"The factions that are based in Sol, or allied with the ones that are." She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "Not all Union nations – factions – are at war with the Exiles, and not all Exiles are friendly to us – Cerberus is Exile, not Union, but they're not our allies in any way." She sounded rueful, and bit into the chewstick-of-a-ration bar. He gave her a moment.

"You're from Sol?"

"Yeah. I was raised in Vancouver on Earth, military capital of the Systems Alliance at the time. Conscripted at fifteen, shipped off to Arcturus for training. Then the fourth war started a few weeks later. The Union launched a surprise attack and nuked Vancouver. The objective was to break the Alliance's spine." She fixed him with a firm look. "It didn't work, it just made us more determined to win. But there was nothing left to hold on to, so we evacuated or went underground."

"So the Union has full control of your homeworld now?"

"Yes. Or at least mostly. There's a resistance movement, and some of the other Union nations aren't entirely friendly with each other. But... after the bombings, there's honestly not much left on the planet worth fighting for. For all intents and purposes, the Union capital is on Mars. Sol IV."

Heh, they had more in common with the Krogan than he had first realised.

"I'm sorry if I seem nosy, but a few days ago I had barely heard the word human, and now I'm talking to one who isn't pointing a gun at me. I'll stop asking stupid questions if you want."

"It's alright," she tilted her head. "It's honestly better you get your facts from me. The Union has a pretty mean propaganda machine, I imagine some of the rumours about humanity are pretty far out there?"

"Yeah, some are," he said as nonchalantly as he could. Truthfully though, the facts – if what Shepard was telling him was true – was turning out far worse than the rumours.

His people needed allies, but Garrus was beginning to suspect this solution was not quite as brilliant as the Council had hoped.


	5. The Alliance

They talked for nearly an hour, and Shepard continued to be a font of information about humanity in general. In return, he answered a lot of questions regarding Citadel space, and the Citadel in particular. Her curiosity about the Keepers was oddly refreshing. Garrus had seen them every day since he'd first arrived from Palaven; they'd just faded into the background for him. Always there, but never worth any attention. He suspected that was how the protheans had intended it.

He'd just finished telling her a sad tale of an investigation in the Keeper tunnels when Captain Cassius informed him over the comm that their systems diagnostic was complete and they were ready to jump to Arcturus.

"We're going to be challenged the moment we enter normal space," Shepard said as they left the Captain's quarters. "Let me do the talking."

The larger human had waited outside while they talked, and fell in line behind them as Garrus led the way to the bridge. He didn't consider until they actually got there whether Shepard would've preferred to watch the central sensor displays in the CIC instead. But she looked perfectly comfortable standing at ease next to the co-pilot chair where a nervous-looking systems tech was sitting.

Garrus didn't know whether it was him or her causing the nervousness, but he felt some of it as well. The pilot however was calmly announcing their routine approach run, not sounding at all like they were about to jump right into the varren's mouth.

The light of the mass relay loomed before them, but Garrus forced himself to look at the human commander instead. He wanted to see _her_ reaction to the miracle of space travel.

He wasn't disappointed. The moment the ship accelerated to amazing speeds of light he saw the brief lift of her lips, the nearly imperceptible breath she drew, and his visor picked up just a touch of heat flushing over her skin, there and gone again. Her spirit definitely belonged to a spacer, whatever else she was.

The light vanished, replaced by the blackness of space. Garrus blinked hard to get his night-vision working again.

This time, space was not empty. He heard a gasp, not sure if it was the pilot or the tech, but he agreed with them. In front of them, on either side of the mass relay corridor, were two tube-shaped space fortresses. The design itself was completely alien to him, all bulky metallic angles, but mass accelerator gunports were universal. And they were aimed straight at the _Unconquerable_.

"Incoming transmission."

"Patch it through," he replied, sounding calm, even to himself.

The human voice was almost as bright as Shepard's. _"Arcturus system control to unidentified ship, state your business."_

"Channel's open," the pilot supplied quietly.

Shepard nodded and straightened, possibly unconsciously. "This is Commander Shepard on board turian Hierarchy ship _Unconquerable._ We're on a diplomatic mission, expected by the admiralty. Recognition code gamma seven seven niner, blue skies."

The investigator in Garrus filed her code away for future reference.

There was a pause before the reply came. _"You're recognised, Commander. Standing down. Do you require escort or welcoming committee?"_

Garrus was very willing to bet that said 'welcoming committee' was a euphemism for a firing squad.

"Negative, system control, this is not a prize ship, it's a guest."

_"Acknowledged, stand by."_ More pause. Shepard started tapping her fingers against her thigh, and glared at Garrus when he grinned at her. So he wasn't the only one with short patience for bureaucratic routines.

Then the human voice on the other end came again, a bit lighter. _"Uh, Admiral Hackett wants to know where the _Normandy_ is."_

Shepard rubbed her forehead. "Tell him I'll tell him in person."

_"Aye ma'am. Proceed to docking bay 54, on beacon whiskey blue. Arcturus system control out."_

The channel closed, and Shepard leaned forward to point out the nav beacon for the pilot to follow.

"Are you going to be in trouble for losing your ship?" Garrus asked, and realised his concern was genuine.

Shepard tilted her head in a very turian shrug. "They won't take my head, I'm too valuable. Besides, I've missed the food in the brig."

There was a snort from the large guard-human. "I haven't."

"Shush, Vega."

Garrus chuckled, and managed to wrangle his curiosity out of asking what the brig-time had been for. Instead he turned his attention to the window and the navigation displays. It was for the first time a Citadel ship was going to get a good look at a central human system – and live to tell the tale.

He didn't know what he had been expecting. A busy system of course, but he'd spent years on the Citadel where busy was the norm around the clock.

It certainly wasn't this.

Space was vast and black, even in a solar system. From a ship, removed from a planet where the view of space was always drowned out by the local sun, you could see the galactic arms and all the stars, even the small and dim ones. At first that's what he thought he was seeing as they cruised towards Arcturus – a sea of dazzling stars in all colours of the visual spectrum, against the backdrop of the galaxy.

Then he realised what he thought were stars were blinking, and moving. Some in clusters, some alone, some vanishing for a moment as something moved in front of them. These weren't just the few dozen running lights of another set of space fortresses they passed, nor just a few gas giants reflecting their star's glow.

There were hundreds of lights. Maybe over a thousand. And they weren't stars. They were ships.

The pilot gasped, and Garrus tore his eyes away from the window to watch the navigation display. Dots filled the screen, too many to count, most reading as unidentified. What he was seeing out the window were the after-images of their propulsion systems, the light several minutes old. On the screen were their FTL-transmitting transponders, effectively making them appear in two places at once.

This wasn't just a busy system. This was a major hub of civilisation.

It appeared chaotic at first glance, but the navigation computer easily parsed the data into clear designated space lanes, just like the one system control had instructed the _Unconquerable_ to follow, or into specific zones surrounding planets, orbital platforms, asteroids, and even more of the space fortresses that had guarded the mass relay.

He glanced up, and sure enough, those fortresses were visible to the naked eye, exactly where the sensors claimed they were. Not stealthed, a relieved voice at the back of his mind said.

That voice was fooling itself; anything equipped with that many mass accelerator gunports, just barely visible at this range, didn't need stealth.

"I take it this system sees a lot of action?" he asked. He knew the human would know what he was referring to.

"Not these days. But before we put those up? Yeah, a lot. The Arcturus system is a relay nexus, we've got three primary relays plus the omni-directional one we just came from. That one leads to Sol, but the Sol relay is at the end of the chain. It only leads here. Strategically speaking, this system is a bottleneck against the Union. We don't let them to come through here, so they have to haul ass the long way around to the next Union-controlled relay." She grinned. "Which is also omni-directional, and in range of Arcturus."

Garrus did some quick alterations to his growing mental map of the human political situation. Bottleneck indeed. "Where I'm from, we call that a 'being surrounded'," he noted dryly.

Shepard simply chuckled.

They shared the vista in silence as they continued deeper into the system, the distance to their destination – now showing clearly on the nav display – shrinking from the thousand millions to the hundred thousands.

"Something is approaching us," the pilot informed them, and pointed on the display for Garrus' benefit. He peered at the readouts at the same time as his earpiece relayed Argosa informing Captain Cassius of the same thing.

"Looks like they want to be sure we aren't _trojans_," Shepard said thoughtfully, probably unaware her phrase hadn't translated. "Let me speak with your Captain." On the pilot's nod that the voice capture was on she continued, "Captain, your ship is about to be hard-scanned by a pair of sensor drones. Nothing to worry about, but they might disrupt some ship systems for a few seconds. They just want to be sure we are who we say we are."

_"I see. Thank you."_

"'Trojans'?" Garrus asked once the speakers were silent.

Shepard took a moment to answer, as if she wasn't sure how to explain. "Ships that pretend to be something else. Usually warships made up to look like merchant ships, but sometimes merchant ships that've been equipped with weapons in their cargo space." She shrugged. "Or just a ship with a curious transponder signal. They know I'm supposed to be bringing you in, but... well. Yeah."

The two drones closed to what constituted poking range in space. The nav console flickered for a moment, but that seemed to be the extent of the disruption. Then they dashed off again. Garrus was pretty certain it was no coincidence that they had come to take a look at the _Unconquerable_ before it entered long distance weapons' range of Arcturus station.

They passed into the true heart of the Arcturus system a few minutes later, and with proximity came clarity. Many of the constant blinking lights were a steady stream of tow tugs dragging small resource satellites – little more than rocks, from the asteroid belt towards what appeared to be construction docks in the vicinity of Arcturus station.

Yet many more were from the mad dance of many dozens of ships in outer orbit of the capital space station, or on their way in or out of dock. Shepard had said the fleet was still back at Arcturus, and that seemed entirely true. You could always tell cargo-haulers from warships, no matter what species. The human ships were a mix of familiar universal space and space-and-atmosphere designs, and unfamiliar angles and layouts. They made him think of birds in some way, narrow fores and wider afts, and all were built along a long axis to allow for maximum mass accelerator power.

Argosa probably didn't even have time to swear for all the scanning and cataloguing she was doing. Given the amount of transponders there weren't many stealthed.

And then the world ceased to make sense. Garrus saw a small group of four ships in formation pass them in visual range. Bulky, clumsy – to his opinion ugly – batarian merchant freighters, led by a batarian merchant cruiser. Smaller than its turian counterpart, but well enough armed to make pirates think twice. He glanced at the nav display, and sure enough. Hegemony registry. He'd known the batarians traded with the humans, just not how extensive that trade must be for there to be three freighters with an escort.

Had that been the only surprise...

Looking around at the orbiting spacecrafts, he recognised several more hulls. No more turian ships like the _Normandy_, but a long, sleek salarian merchant courier, and a pair of hanar relay-hoppers. They were small ships, and if they hadn't passed close enough to _see_ the hulls, he wouldn't have been able to identify them.

Something was off though.

"What does the blue lines painted on the hull mean?" he asked Shepard curiously. Both the hanar ships and the salarian had them, but none of the human or batarian ships did.

"They're System Alliance prize ships."

She'd used that word before, he recalled. "Prize ships, does that mean they were captured, like your _Normandy_?"

"Yes," she admitted easily. No hesitation at confessing to piracy there. "The blue stripes are heat conductive, they show up as lines on scanners. We put them on ships that aren't immediately recognisable as ours because they still have a lot of original hardware. Just as a heads up they haven't been completely converted."

"I see." Because only a paranoid species would need the extra FoF recognition, as if another pair of space fortresses coming into view wasn't enough. They were spaced evenly in a protective sphere around the capital station and the surrounding floating hives, or hubs, of long finger-shaped space drydocks, like spines and ribcages enveloping the ships within them. Each one contained a ship either being constructed or retrofitted.

And in one of the space docks was an exotic ship configuration with a large spherical fore. No blue lines that he could see.

"That's a quarian ship. What's it doing here?"

"They rent yard time in exchange for H-3 fuel supplies and up-to-date starcharts. Our scouts don't have the range that the quarians do. We had to discover the relay network system by system before we met them."

A neat system. Pilgrims brought valuable info back to the fleet, the fleet then traded that info to the humans at a decent rate. That also hadn't been in his intel.

Quarians and batarians in the same system without shooting at each other? Quarians receiving quality retrofits? Batarians trading peacefully? Oh, he could see the implications of this. A stable trading partner, one that looked the other way against some of the Hegemony's offences, would have a stabilising influence on both of them, and stability would lead to fewer pirates and raiders, which in turn was why the Citadel space's back door hadn't been pried open.

The things you found out. Why had the Council ignored the humans for so long?

By then he thought he was all out of surprise, and they were nearing their final point on the beacon leading them to their dock.

Then Shepard leaned forward and looked up. Garrus mirrored her to see what had gotten her attention.

At first he thought it was just another fortress, but the design wasn't the bulky metal tubes that had dotted the path from the mass relay. It was something else, something inelegant, as though someone had taken a bird of prey, turned it into metal, then bolted armoured plates all over it until its original form was hidden and forgotten.

Then he saw the glow of propulsion thrusters, far larger than a space station would possibly have.

That was a ship. A massive one. Garrus quenched a nervous fidget. It was difficult to tell size in space just by visual but you could still make a decent guesstimate by looking at thrusters, gunports, and similar things that were generally uniform in size due to the laws of physics. And there were several other ships working on it, providing reference points. It dwarfed them all, and the drydock seemed to have been constructed around it and then expanded as the ship grew.

He glanced at Shepard. She'd been looking at him. She had to know exactly what this display was telling them, there was no way she'd be unaware what they were thinking.

"I have to ask," he said. Shepard nodded.

"That's the Victory class super-dreadnought SSV _Vancouver_, the first of her kind. Two point three kilometers bow to aft, four point one million metric tonnes, crew of five thousand."

She'd said their enemies bombed the city of Vancouver, so they named a ship like it. Just like the two _Normandy_. Patterns, Garrus liked patterns.

His eyes reluctantly returned to the ship. He couldn't be sure just by looking at it, but judging by the number of mass accelerator gunports, torpedo tubes and laser turrets he could see, that thing might very well meet the _Destiny Ascension_ for firepower. Possibly even surpass it.

But, he reminded himself sternly, visuals said very little about what was under the hood.

Still...

"Time to completion?"

"Three to four weeks until the final plate, another couple of weeks for internal systems. Shakedown cruise scheduled in two months." She gave him a long look. "But some of the weapons systems, targeting arrays, and basic maneuvering thrusters are already online. We've had far too many cavalry raids to let even ships in in drydock be blind and toothless."

Garrus nodded, and wondered again about the depth of human intel penetration. The Hierarchy had learned that lesson the hard way; the Krogan had launched a suicide raid on one of the Hierarchy's largest shipyards. Krogan casualties had been 100%, but they had only lost ships and warriors. The turians had lost more than half of their _total_ ship production capacity, not counting the loss of several half-to-nearly finished ships that would've joined the front in the not too far future, and more importantly the ship designers and construction workers that had the skills to build those ships. If the Hierarchy hadn't believed the system to be impenetrable, if they had employed a little bit of human paranoia, then maybe the Hierarchy wouldn't have to ask the humans for help.

"Why are you showing us this? You could've specified we drop you off at some remote station to do the negotiations, kept all of this hidden." He didn't have to tell her the Citadel had had no intel on any of this until now.

"Because I wanted to dispel you of the notion that we are natives to be enthralled by shiny baubles. And because Miranda was right about one thing." Shepard's voice was still pleasant, but there was an undercurrent of something hard beneath. "We're not anyone's puppets."

* * *

Codex Entry: Systems Alliance system control identification.

Due to the rising prevalence of Alliance capture of "prize ships", partially or fully operational ships that sometimes still have a hostile crew on board, either in stocks or operating the ship under coercion, all unidentified ships are expected and required to identify themselves on entry to any system under Systems Alliance control, on penalty of death. Every command level officer has a personal recognition code consisting of a three or four digits depending on rank, a Greek letter signifying primary military branch, followed by one of two codes:

- Blue skies, meaning the ship is under solid Alliance control. (Blue is the primary colour of the Alliance)

- Clear skies, meaning the ship is not under Alliance control, and the commanding officer is acting under duress. This code results in the immediate destruction of the ship by system defenders. ("Clearing the sky")


End file.
